2 - The Map-maker: Developing ‘the Soldier’s Eye’

Summary

THE NEED FOR A MILITARY MAP OF THE HIGHLANDS

By the first week of December 1746 the Jacobite army had reached Derby, nearly 300 miles from Edinburgh but only 130 miles from London, and there was expectation of an imminent landing on the south-east coast by the French, the foremost Catholic power in Europe. Yet the swelling of the army’s numbers on the march southwards from Carlisle that the Prince had hoped for – and relied upon – had not happened. The King’s forces, under the Duke of Cumberland and Marshal Wade, were coming closer and the Jacobites risked being cut off. Reluctantly, the decision was taken to retreat to Scotland and to consolidate their forces there. On 20 December they re-crossed the Border. At the end of January, Lord George Murray and the clan chiefs persuaded the Prince that it would be prudent to return to the Highlands, and by 18 February Charles was in Inverness. On 8 April the Duke’s forces broke camp from their winter quarters in Aberdeen and set out on the 100-mile march to Inverness. On 12 April they crossed the Spey, and on 16 April, a day of hail and rain, the two armies finally engaged on Drummossie Muir, by Culloden. It ended in vengeful butchery in which the Highlanders were pursued into the streets of Inverness and far beyond.

After four insurgencies, in 1689, 1715, 1719 and 1745, and abortive French invasions in 1708 and 1744, Cumberland had to ensure that the Jacobite cause could not be revived. In the days immediately after the battle, the Duke turned his attention to rebuilding Fort Augustus, which had been badly damaged, and to founding Fort George, at Ardersier on the shores of the Moray Firth. The re-fortification of the Highlands had begun. The Highlands had not been the theatre of the war, but it had been the recruiting ground for the rebels. After the rising in 1715 a certain amount had been done to bring the clan communities under surveillance and control.